Work
Kristien Hemmerechts published her debut in 1986 with the collection First Fictions, Introduction 9 which was written in English. Her first novel Een Zuil van Zout was published in 1987. It received the Prijs van de provincie Brabant. In 1990 she received the prestigious Vlaamse driejaarlijkse Staatsprijs voor proza. A recurring theme in Hemmerechts' work is man's incapability to give direction in life. Characters are faced with the incapability of communicating with others which leads to the inability of creating meaningful human relationships. Causes are to be sought in feelings of estrangement from the world and the self, loneliness and guilt.
In a lot of her work, Hemmerechts depicts sexuality from a female point of view. Explicit scenes are the foundation of accusations that say Kristien Hemmerechts deliberately wants to provoke her readers. Her style is a distant one that registers accounts and thought. She shows rather than participates as a narrator in her story lines.
Read more about this topic: Kristien Hemmerechts
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle—absolute busyness—then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy—and without consciousness.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)
“The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“... possibly there is no needful occupation which is wholly unbeautiful. The beauty of work depends upon the way we meet it—whether we arm ourselves each morning to attack it as an enemy that must be vanquished before night comes, or whether we open our eyes with the sunrise to welcome it as an approaching friend who will keep us delightful company all day, and who will make us feel, at evening, that the day was well worth its fatigues.”
—Lucy Larcom (1824–1893)